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Everyone Worth Knowing
Lauren Weisberger
From the bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada, comes a no-holds barred expose of the world of the Manhattan super-rich.Bette gets paid to party …Well, to plan them, anyway. And she can hardly believe her luck. Running with celebs, gaining VIP access to Manhattan's hottest spots and meeting 'everyone worth knowing' is a million miles away from her old banking job. Overnight, New York has become her sexy late-night playground.But quicker than you can say Birkin bag, Bette turns up in the gossip columns as girlfriend to a notorious British playboy. It's news to her – but news that delights her publicity-hungry new boss.Her family and old friends, however, think it's not very Bette. What happened to the girl they know and love – who always had time for romantic novels, 80s music and junk food, not to mention them?As her new and old worlds threaten to collide, can Bette say goodbye to the glamour and the Gucci, the parties and the Prada, and step back into the real world – and find a prince who's got a heart to match his charm?
Copyright (#ulink_2d634196-1463-590f-bef5-2532f59eb5a5)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2005
Copyright © Lauren Weisberger 2005
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Lauren Weisberger asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007182657
Ebook Edition © May 2013 ISBN: 9780007494361
Version: 2016-04-27
To my grandparents:This should help them remember which grandchild I am.
Contents
Cover (#ua47ce343-eeb8-55e1-803b-4d6e1b374936)
Title Page (#ue7171801-f1d8-587e-989a-ce6421c509e1)
Copyright (#u25933f3c-5f04-54ff-9b73-6890db80b653)
Dedication (#uc286c7a9-ec43-502f-9b9e-881f153bd2f0)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgments
About the Author (#u14100b80-1c9c-5bfb-af5c-ced8c9830e6a)
Also by Lauren Weisberger (#uf0217049-e989-5605-95e8-6401bae52a70)
About the Publisher (#ubf18df48-2252-583e-be28-81f7eb4a163b)
1 (#udd89c3a8-2829-5bfa-adf2-4ff67959b207)
How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?
—From ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’ (1967) by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Though I’d caught only the briefest glimpse from the corner of my eye, I knew immediately that the brown creature darting across my warped hardwood floors was a water bug – the largest, meatiest insect I’d ever seen. The superbug had narrowly avoided skimming across my bare feet before it disappeared under the bookcase. Trembling, I forced myself to practice the chakra breathing I’d learned during an involuntary week at an ashram with my parents. My heart rate slowed slightly after a few concentrated breaths of re on the inhale and lax on the exhale, and within a few minutes I was functional enough to take some necessary precautions. First I rescued Millington (who was also cowering in terror) from her hiding place under the couch. Then, in quick succession, I zipped on a pair of knee-high leather boots to cover my exposed legs, opened the door to the hallway to encourage the bug’s departure, and began spraying the extra-strong black-market vermin poison on every available surface in my minuscule one-bedroom. I gripped the trigger as though it were an assault weapon and was still spraying when the phone rang nearly ten minutes later.
The caller ID flashed with Penelope’s number. I almost screened her before I realized that she was one of only two potential refuges. Should the water bug manage to live through the fumigation and cruise through my living room again, I’d need to crash with her or Uncle Will. Unsure where Will was tonight, I decided it’d be wise to keep the lines of communication intact. I answered.
‘Pen, I’m under attack by the largest roach in Manhattan. What do I do?’ I asked the second I picked up the phone.
‘Bette, I have NEWS!’ she boomed back, clearly indifferent to my panic.
‘News more important than my infestation?’
‘Avery just proposed!’ Penelope shrieked. ‘We’re engaged!’
Goddammit. Those two simple words – we’re engaged – could make one person so happy and another so miserable. Autopilot quickly kicked in, reminding me that it would be inappropriate – to say the least – if I were to verbalize what I really thought. He’s a loser, P. He’s a spoiled, stoner little kid in the body of a big boy. He knows you’re out of his league and is putting a ring on your finger before you realize it as well. Worse, by marrying him you will be merely biding your time until he replaces you with a younger, hotter version of yourself ten years down the line, leaving you to pick up the pieces. Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Don’t do it!
‘Ohmigod!’ I shrieked right back. ‘Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!’
‘Oh, Bette, I knew you would be. I can barely even speak, it’s just all happening so fast!’
So fast? He’s the only guy you’ve dated since you were nineteen. It’s not like this wasn’t expected – it’s been eight years. I just hope he doesn’t catch herpes at his bachelor party in Vegas.
‘Tell me everything. When? How? Ring?’ I rattled off questions, playing the best friend role fairly believably, I thought, all things considered.
‘Well, I can’t talk too long because we’re at the St Regis right now. Remember how he insisted on picking me up for work today?’ Before waiting for my answer, she raced breathlessly ahead. ‘He had a car waiting outside and told me it was just because he couldn’t get a cab, and said that we were expected for dinner at his parents’ house in ten minutes. Of course, I was a little annoyed that he hadn’t even asked if I wanted to go to dinner there – he’d said he’d made reservations at Per Se, and you know how tough it is to get in there – and we were having pre-drinks in the library when in walked both our parents. Before I knew what was happening, he was down on one knee!’
‘In front of all your parents? He did the public proposal?’ I knew I sounded horrified, but I couldn’t help it.
‘Bette, it was hardly public. It was our parents, and he said the sweetest things in the world. I mean, we never would’ve met if it weren’t for them, so I can see his point. And get this – he gave me two rings!’
‘Two rings?’
‘Two rings. A seven-carat flawless round in platinum that was his great-great-grandmother’s for the real ring, and then a very pretty three-carat ascher-cut with baguettes that’s much more wearable.’
‘Wearable?’
‘It’s not as though you can roam the streets of New York in a seven-carat rock, you know. I thought it was really smart.’
‘Two rings?’
‘Bette, you’re incoherent. We went from there to Per Se, where my father even managed to turn off his cell phone for the duration of dinner and make a reasonably nice toast, and then we went for a carriage ride in Central Park, and now we’re at a suite in the St Regis. I just had to call and tell you!’
Where, oh where, had my friend gone? Penelope, who’d never even shopped for engagement rings because she thought they all looked the same, who had told me three months earlier when a mutual college friend had gotten engaged in the back of a horse-drawn carriage that it was the tackiest thing on earth, had just morphed into a very close approximation of a Stepford Wife. Was I just bitter? Of course I was bitter. The closest I’d come to getting engaged was reading the wedding announcements in The New York Times, aka the Single Girls’ Sports Page, every Sunday at brunch. But that was beside the point.
‘I’m so glad you did! And I can’t wait to hear every last detail, but you’ve got an engagement to consummate. Get off the phone with me and go make your fiancé happy. How weird does that sound? “Fiancé.’’ ’
‘Oh, Avery’s on a call from work. I keep telling him to hang up’ – she announced this loudly for his benefit – ‘but he just keeps talking and talking. How has your night been?’
‘Ah, another stellar Friday. Let’s see. Millington and I took a walk over to the river, and some homeless guy gave her a biscuit along the way, so she was really happy, and then I came home, and hopefully killed what must be the largest insect in the tristate area. I ordered Vietnamese, but I threw it out when I remembered reading that some Vietnamese place near me was shut down for cooking dog, and so now I’m about to dine on reheated rice and beans and a packet of stale Twizzlers. Oh, Christ, I sound like a Lean Cuisine commercial, don’t I?’
She just laughed, clearly having no words of comfort at that particular moment. The other line clicked, indicating that she had another call.
‘Oh, it’s Michael. I have to tell him. Do you care if I three-way him in?’ she asked.
‘Sure. I’d love to hear you tell him.’ Michael would undoubtedly commiserate with me over the entire situation once Penelope hung up since he hated Avery even more than I did.
There was a click, which was followed by a brief silence and then another click. ‘Everyone there?’ Penelope squealed. This was not a girl who normally squealed. ‘Michael? Bette? You guys both on?’
Michael was a colleague of mine and Penelope’s at UBS, but since he’d made VP (one of the youngest ever) we’d seen much less of him. Though Michael had a serious girlfriend, it took Penelope’s engagement to really drive the point home: we were growing up.
‘Hi, girls,’ Michael said, sounding exhausted.
‘Michael, guess what? I’m engaged!’
There was the tiniest beat of hesitation. I knew that, like me, Michael wasn’t surprised, but he would be trying hard to formulate a believably enthusiastic response.
‘Pen, that’s fantastic news!’ he all but shouted into the phone. His volume did much to compensate for the lack of any genuine joy in his voice, and I made a mental note to remember that for next time.
‘I know!’ she sang back. ‘I knew you and Bette would be so happy for me. It just happened a few hours ago, and I’m so excited!’
‘Well, we’ll obviously have to celebrate,’ he said loudly. ‘Black Door, just the three of us, multiple shots of something strong and cheap.’
‘Definitely,’ I added, happy for something to say. ‘A celebration is most definitely in order.’
‘Okay, honey!’ Penelope called into the distance, our drinking plans understandably of little interest. ‘Guys, Avery’s off the phone and is pulling on the cord. Avery, stop! I’ve got to run, but I’ll call you both later. Bette, see you at work tomorrow. Love you both!’
